It turns out teens today are not -- I repeat, not -- going to hell in a hand-basket. Or, at least, far fewer of them than expected are headed there for the sin of "sexting," according to a new survey. The Pew Research Center conducted a phone and paper survey of 800 teenagers and found that only 4 percent report having sent "sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude images" to someone via text message, and 15 percent have received X-rated cellphone snapshots.
Compare that to an online survey published earlier this year by CosmoGirl.com and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy which found that 20 percent of teens have "sexted." At the time, I wrote about the research and noted that although voluntary polls tend to be self-selecting, "the results seem obvious, maybe even understated" -- because, hey, I still vividly remember what it was like being post-pubescent with access to the Internet and all manner of new technology. According to the Pew study, though, teenagers must be far less pervy and far more well-behaved than they were back in my day.
Well, that or they aren't relying on their cellphones to conduct their naughty business. Remember, the study only takes into account sex and cellphones, which leaves out e-mail, MySpace, Facebook, chat rooms and -- the list goes on. Plus, the study was conducted in late summer and early fall of this year, well after "sexting" hysteria in the media had reached its peak. Considering the extent of parental handwringing and the number of high-profile cases of kids being charged as sex offenders for sending explicit texts, they would have been smart to find another outlet -- and teenagers are nothing if not smart about findings ways to do what they want without adults finding out.
"The ban on abortions at military hospitals hasn't been a prominent aspect of abortion rights advocacy in recent years, as reproductive rights activists have scrambled to avoid losing further ground to anti-abortion measures like the House health care bill's Stupak amendment or the corresponding Nelson amendment defeated last week in the Senate," writes Kathryn Joyce at Religion Dispatches. "But there are reasons why it should be." Among those is the story of a former Marine she calls Amy, who found herself pregnant in Falllujah two years ago. Except in cases of rape, incest or a threat to the woman's life, military hospitals cannot provide abortions, due to restrictions on federal funding of them -- and meanwhile, a soldier risks substantial personal and professional repercussions if she admits to being pregnant at all. She can be punished for having sex in a war zone (even if, as Amy later recognized was the case, she was raped), denied promotions, derided by commanding officers and humiliated by her peers. As National Abortion Federation president Vicki Saporta told Joyce, "If you're a woman in the military, you're going to have to obtain a leave to get the care you need. If you're honest about why you need that care, you put your military career in jeopardy. If you're not honest, then you put your military career in jeopardy." Or, as Amy put it, it's "like being given a choice between swimming in a pond full of crocodiles or piranhas."
So, unable to access a safe and legal abortion, Amy used "herbal abortifacient supplements ordered online... her sanitized rifle cleaning rod and a laundry pin" to induce a miscarriage. The first time she tried it, she lost a tremendous amount of blood, but remained pregnant. The second time, she became so ill afterwards, she sought help from a female supervisor. After being taken to a military hospital, she miscarried alone, got a $500 fine for having sex in a war zone, and eventually asked to be sent home -- a request granted because a military psychiatrist was easily persuaded that Amy was unstable. "They convinced themselves that anyone who would do a self-abortion is crazy," she told Joyce. "It's not a crazy thing. It's something that rational, thinking women do when they have no options."
It's something that rational, thinking women do when they have no options. Today, when an entire generation of American pro-choice activists was born after Roe v. Wade, when those of us who've been geographically and financially able to access legal abortion -- and/or had the education, available contraception and good fortune to avoid pregnancy -- hear the words "back alley" and only picture Cynthia Rhodes hemorrhaging prettily in "Dirty Dancing," that point cannot be emphasized enough. Banning abortion does not stop women from seeking to end unwanted pregnancies; it drives them to risk their own lives and health to do so. And that's continued even since the Supreme Court declared that abortion is a Constitutionally protected right, thanks to restrictions on when and where abortions can be performed, and who pays for them. The military ban, Joyce writes, creates "just one more category of women -- including those below the poverty line, federal employees, those cared for by Indian Health Service and Peace Corps volunteers -- who fall into the canyons created by sweeping bans on federal funding for abortion." Now, anti-abortion clauses in the healthcare reform bill threaten to add middle-class women to the list -- meaning we'd essentially be right back in 1972, with safe abortion services available only to wealthy women who can afford to skirt the restrictions. The military ban may seem like a low-priority issue to pro-choice activists who aren't among the 200,000 female service members (not to mention spouses and dependents on military bases) directly affected by it, but it's a sobering example of how cutting off access to abortion services endangers people's health and lives. Says Joyce, "Going forward, the failure in care that military women have long had to contend with could be shared by all American women."
I just came across an advertisement (via The Cut) that almost made me vomit -- so I thought I'd share it with you all! RAW Natural Beauty, a line of eco-friendly, mineral makeup, is trying to forever turn us off the standard fare found in the makeup aisle with a YouTube video starring Stevie Ryan of "Little Loca" fame. It begins with her preening for a hot date -- but then out comes the lipstick, and things take a turn for the worse. She ends up gorging on her entire arsenal of makeup before vomiting up the pink contents of her stomach. Then the spot spells out its intended lesson: "Over the course of a lifetime, the average woman ingests 7 pounds of lipstick."
Huh. I don't know about you, but that doesn't make me want to go the "natural" makeup route -- it just makes me want to forgo lipstick altogether.
Our quote of the day comes from New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis, in an interview with Jezebel, "on why so many romantic comedies are so terrible":
One, the people making them have no fucking taste, two, they're morons, three they're insulting panderers who think they're making movies for the great unwashed and that's what they want. I love romantic movies. I absolutely do. But I literally don't know what's happening. I think it's depressing that Judd Apatow makes the best romantic comedies and they're about men. All power to Apatow, but he's taken and repurposed one of the few genres historically made for women... We had so few [genres] that were made specifically for the female audience and now the best of them are being made by Judd Apatow.
Don't even get her started on how women are faring in other genres. The Jezebel interview is a candid and delightfully potty-mouthed follow-up to Dargis's recent Times piece on women in film, in which she breaks the depressing news that, despite all the hype about movies made by women in 2009, "the closer you look at the list of female filmmakers from this year, and the more you separate the breathless hype about the better-known 'femme-driven pics,' to use a favorite Variety locution, the worse the numbers get." It's almost enough to make you want to buy an opening-weekend ticket to any movie directed or produced by a woman, just to counter the enduring perception in Hollywood that such films don't make enough money to be worthwhile (and if they do, they're flukes). Almost. "Sometimes I think what women should do what various black and gay audiences have done, which is support women making movies for women," Dargis told Jezebel. "So does that mean I have to go support Nora Ephron? Fuck no. That's just like, blech."
Today did bring a bit of good news, though. The Golden Globe nominations were announced, and women made a pretty good showing. Kathryn Bigelow was nominated for best director, and her "The Hurt Locker" is up for best drama. "Julie and Julia" and "It's Complicated" are both contenders for best musical or comedy. Sandra Bullock was nominated twice, for best actress in both a drama and a musical/comedy, and Meryl Streep is also competing against herself in the latter category -- which only has one woman under 40. "Precious" got a best picture nod and best actress and supporting actress nominations for Gabourey Sidibe and Mo'Nique, respectively. Is all this a sign of progress? Well, as Dargis said in the Jez interiew, "It's pretty shitty right now. Anything positive can only help a little bit. How's that for optimism?"
Sex sells -- and it can also help build political empires. Media magnate and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi understands that: His popular television stations showcase a rotating cast of scantily clad beauties, and women are often promoted within his political party based on aesthetic qualifications alone. But while his perviness has helped him become one of the richest and most powerful men in the world, it increasingly seems like it could also cause his unraveling.
To say that Berlusconi has had a bad year would be a monumental understatement. On Sunday, a protester's shockingly brutal attack landed him in the hospital and allegations of his mafia ties have been renewed once again -- but he also has a whopper of a woman problem. He's had not one but two sex scandals: This spring, his wife publicly announced she was leaving him following rumors about his romance with an 18-year-old girl, and an Italian businessman recently alleged that he supplied the prime minister with 30 aspiring starlets -- including one prostitute -- for personal entertainment at his various vacation homes.
Then, Berlusconi dug his hole even deeper by telling Rosy Bindi, vice president of the Chamber of Deputies and one of Italy's most powerful female politicians, on state TV that she was "always more beautiful than intelligent" -- a comment many interpreted to mean that she was especially unintelligent. Her retort, "I'm not one of the women at your disposal," galvanized some 100,000 women to send in photos and notes of protest to a liberal newspaper, many of which declared, "Mr. Premier, I'm not at your disposal."
A new documentary, "Videocracy," also takes a critical look at Berlusconi's "skin is in" approach. In the film, "crowds of eager parents and grandparents egg on skittish young women" auditioning for the coveted role as a "velina," one of the many pieces of eye candy featured on Italian news programs and game shows, the Associated Press reports. (Think Barker's Beauties or "Deal or No Deal" models.) In the (NSFW) trailer for the documentary, a bevy of girls wiggle their hips and flip their hair in the desperate mating dance of 20-somethings everywhere. On a similar tack, the popular video "Il Corpo delle Donne," which translates as "The Body of Women," compiles some of the most shameless moments of T'n'A from Berlusconi's stations and state television. The most egregious example: A woman is shown suspended from the ceiling in skimpy underwear next to a literal piece of meat clad in a matching pair of panties; it's awfully reminiscent of that infamous meat-grinder Hustler cover. Worse than anything shown in either video, though, is the fact that a recent poll of young girls in Milan found that most want to grow up to be a velina.
Of course they do. In Berlusconi's world, there is no dividing line between politics and entertainment; instead, he's created a politi-tainment conglomerate of sorts. His minister for (of all things) equal opportunity is a perfect example of this: She started as a showgirl on state TV; that alone is her qualification for the job. Formidable female politicians like Rosy Bindi are derided as ugly old crows for forgoing the cleavage and collagen look of veline, while inexperienced Berlusconi appointees are giddily celebrated for being fuckable. There are many factors at play here (like a deeply entrenched patriarchal culture) but it would be hard to overstate Berlusconi's particular influence on the current sexual culture; the guy holds sway over an estimated 90 percent of Italian media.
The recent outcry shows there is hope yet for those little girls, though. More and more Italians are looking beyond the nearly naked women Berlusconi has surrounded himself with to discover that it's the emperor who has no clothes.
Today, Men with Pens blogger James Chartrand revealed that "he" is actually a lady with a laptop. After working under her real name for years, Chartrand was still struggling to make it as a freelance writer. Not only was her income negligible, but "I was treated like crap, too. Bossed around, degraded, condescended to, with jibes made about my having to work from home. I quickly learned not to mention I had kids. I quickly learned not to mention I worked from my kitchen table." Out of desperation, she started submitting work under a male pseudonym, just to see if it made a difference. And boy, did it ever.
Instantly, jobs became easier to get.
There was no haggling. There were compliments, there was respect. Clients hired me quickly, and when they received their work, they liked it just as quickly. There were fewer requests for revisions -- often none at all.
Customer satisfaction shot through the roof. So did my pay rate.
I think Mary Elizabeth Williams spoke for all of us at Broadsheet when she said in an e-mail, "Wow! That's so fucking Brontë sisters!" George Eliot and George Sand also leapt quickly to mind; when we think of women writers finding success under male pseudonyms, our thoughts naturally turn to the 19th century. But then, Chartrand also mentions Isak Dinesen, whose first book was published in 1934. And come to think of it, I've read that in the late 1990s, J.K. Rowling became known as such because her publishers feared that boys wouldn't read books written by someone named Joanne. Last spring, the website Divine Caroline made a list of seven famous female authors who used male names, including Alice Bradley Sheldon, who found it easier to break into science fiction writing in 1967 as James Tiptree, Jr., and Nora Roberts, who chose the name J.D. Robb in 1995 when she began writing detective fiction alongside her wildly successful romance novels. When much-admired political blogger Digby accepted an award in person in 2007, some of her biggest fans were shocked to learn that she's a woman.
And not long before that, the vicious harassment of tech blogger Kathy Sierra sparked a national conversation about the dangers of writing under a female name on the internet; it's not just about the unfair differences in remuneration and respect, but about the threats of murder and rape. In her 2007 essay "Where Are the Women?: Pseudonymity and the Public Sphere, Then and Now," academic and feminist blogger Tedra Osell writes, "Although both men and women said they used pseudonyms to avoid being identified by their employers, many women simply explained pseudonymity as the result of fear, not of professional repercussions, but for their or their children's physical safety. Five women reported having been 'threatened' online before taking up blogging. One man who did express anxiety about putting his or his family's real names on the Internet explicitly noted that his wife was more afraid of it than he was." And even if there's no physical danger, the emotional abuse hurled at women writers can be intense. In the wake of Sierra's decision to stop blogging, Joan Walsh wrote about the response to a Salon interview she did with Anne Lamott: "I don't want to compare that thread to what Sierra suffered; there were no threats of violence and no particularly sexual insults. But boy, there were plenty of insults, and most of them had to do with us as women -- as mothers, as sexual objects, as writers, as professional women in the world. To boil it down, we're wrinkly old hags (even though Lamott said my neck looks good! WTF?); we're narcissists and bad mothers, and worst of all, for writers, we're really bad writers, and terribly stupid. But mostly we're just bad women. Bad, bad women. And did I mention ugly and wrinkly?" Yes, male writers take all sorts of criticism online, much of it nasty, personal and unjustified -- but it's rarely so blatantly gendered.
In light of all that, then, I shouldn't have been surprised that using a male pseudonym had such a dramatic effect on Chartrand's career. Death threats and sexually degrading commentary directed at women writers seem very 21st century -- so modern! so fresh! -- but being paid half as much for the same work? Landing fewer jobs? Receiving more criticism and less respect? That just sounds so old-fashioned. I learned about women posing as men to get work in elementary school history lessons, not when I went to grad school for writing. The thought that if I'd tried writing as, say, Kevin Harding, I might have earned far more money, opportunity and authority than I have, is almost as inconceivable as it is chilling. Since the Brontë days, says Chartrand, "we've had feminism. We have the right to vote, to own property, to be members of Parliament and Congress, to get a job, and to be the main breadwinner of the family. And yet apparently we haven't gotten past those 19th century stigmas."
But that shouldn't come as a shock so much as a sobering reminder of what women continue to deal with in the workforce every day. The most embarrassing thing about my initial surprise is that I know it's all of a piece -- that the constant threats and insults directed at female writers are meant to silence us and reinforce our inferiority when employment discrimination and crap pay aren't doing that fast enough. I get furious when people insist that western women have achieved full equality, feminism is no longer necessary, the wage gap is imaginary or the lack of women in positions of power is unrelated to sexism. But even I've bought into the myth of meritocracy enough that my first thought upon learning a female writer massively increased her success by adopting a male pseudonym was, "Wow, how retro! How Brontë, how Eliot, how Sand." Certainly not "how Rowling."
But the difference a male name can still make in the 21st century -- and the connection to Kathy Sierra's harassment and the fears expressed by female bloggers in Osell's essay -- should have been obvious from Chartrand's post-script to the piece. "Oh, my real name?" she writes. "Well, I never really wanted that revealed, totally apart from the gender issue. I know better than most how quickly and profoundly revealing just a tiny bit of personal information can affect (and even destroy) people's lives. I have kids. I'm not interested in making myself vulnerable in that way. So please. Just call me James."
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